I took a sip of the wine, which was as disgusting as always, and chewed on the dry, tasteless venison we had been served.
Not to be rude, but I’ve eaten wagyu before, and after experiencing such exquisite meat, I didn’t find the beef that the minotaurs were so proud of to be very good at all. The taste was the only thing remotely American about this barbeque.
Not that I’m down on the seasoning in this fantasy world. In fact, when I think back on it now, the lean beef they were serving had a pretty good texture and wasn’t actually that bad once you got used to it.
The wine was still disgusting, though. Sure, it was always disgusting, but even the better food tasted awful with the musical accompaniment of powerful people bargaining away our lives.
I set my wine glass on my dining tray with a sigh, then glanced over at Gimul. He was about to be offered up as a pledge and sent away from the village for as good as forever, so I doubted he was in a very good mood. But as usual, his face betrayed nothing.
“Are you going to drink, Gimul?”
“Shut up.”
“If we don’t talk, this won’t be much of a party. You’re still not ready to go through with this, are you?”
“Go be social with the bull-kin. Leave me alone.”
“Look, Gimul…” I shouldn’t have done this, but the alcohol had eroded my inhibitions. I edged closer to him and whispered, “It’s not your fault things turned out this way. You should think about what the best possible outcome would be in this situation and work toward that. When you’re backed into a corner, that’s when you get most creative.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re getting a beautiful bride from the bull-kin. And she’s the little sister of the chieftain, so she’s part of a powerful family. But me? I’m being sent off as a pledge, and to who? I have no idea. I can only imagine what they’re saying about me back in the village.” His face dark with bitterness, Gimul drained his cup of wine.
Just then, I remembered that Gimul didn’t handle his alcohol well. When we first met, he had drawn his sword on me in order to steal my wine. He’d been pretty well-behaved when we went to town, but maybe that was because we were traveling and he needed to watch out for himself.
Now, Gimul poured more wine for himself and chugged down cup after cup. “Please,” he muttered, “watch out for the village chief—take care of my stepmother for me. If one of the bull-kin marries her, I’ll lose my mind.”
“You can’t do that. Your stepmother has gone to all this trouble to set you up for the future. You need to accept your mother’s wishes for you.”
Gimul slammed down his cup. “I wish I was the one always getting new wives!”
“No one’s decided that the girl is going to marry me yet. The village chief might be looking for someone else for her.”
“What are you saying, hm? Are you—are you saying you don’t appreciate what my stepmother is doing for you? Everything she’s done?”
“No, of course not.”
He always got this way when he was drunk. Such a pain in the neck.
“I hope they give me someone beautiful, too…” he mumbled.
So that was what this was all about. No one had spoken to Gimul about who he was going to marry, so he was imagining all sorts of terrible scenarios. And of course he was upset about having to leave his mother.
“Listen,” Gimul slurred, “if my stepmother ever talks about getting remarried, you need to do everything in your power to put a stop to it. If I have to hand her over to someone else, I want it to be you I’m calling ‘father.’”
“Excuse me?” I shrieked, nearly hysterical at what Gimul was saying to me.
“Look, if the marriage was just symbolic, and you and my stepmother got married, no one would dare make a play for her then. See what I did there? Ideas. I’m fulla ideas. You appreciate that now, okay? You’re gonna do this for me, Shooter.”
“You’re pretty drunk, aren’t you?”
“Pshhhh. Nah. I’m the same as I always am. You’re drunk,” he said, drunkenly. Gimul continued to outline his so-called “great idea” to me. I glanced over to Tanne d’Arc, who was seated on my other side and, almost immediately, a woman from our village came by and offered the bull-kin girl more of the terrible wine. I thought maybe it would be Cassandra, but it turned out to be Gintanen, of all people.
I expected Gintanen’s usual sour expression, but she was wearing this awful fake smile. Brr. The village chief had said she would gather young, pretty women to entertain the guests. I guess Gintamen fit…one of those words?
As if reading my mind, Tanne d’Arc turned down Gintanen’s offer of wine. Gintanen’s smile instantly melted into a glower, so I quickly intervened.
“Thank you, Gintanen. A lovely woman like you shouldn’t waste your time here. Go see if any of those handsome young men need anything. I’ll chat with our little Tanne d’Arc. I am the best warrior in the village, after all.”
“Harrumph. The best naked slave in the village—that I would believe!”
I managed to avert disaster, but now the problem was Tanne d’Arc. She kept her face passively demure, but there was a steel in the set of her jaw. I scanned her expression intently. How could I patch this up?
“I’m not sure I like the way you’re looking at me,” she said. “Is there something on my face? And don’t think I didn’t notice the way you were ogling my breasts earlier. Like some sort of beastly ogre.”
“Well, it’s human nature for the eyes to be drawn to the great wonders of the world.”
She sniffed. “You really are barbarians, then.”
“Certainly not! I’m an admirer of the human form, like any man of culture.” I refused to let her label me a barbarian because, I mean, that was Nishka, right? “Speaking of, are you really so opposed to marrying a human?”
“Of course I am. After all, I heard that you already have a wife! Oh yes, Sir Barbarian, what an honor, to be an auxiliary wife. How charming.”
“No, that’s not—I just married my wife this spring, and I am grateful to have her in my life.”
“Well, I’m glad someone is feeling grateful in all this mess.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“Ha! Do you, now? Well then, what are you going to do about it?”
“The fact is, this puts me in an uncomfortable position, too. I can’t go against the wishes of the village chief and I have no idea how I would persuade my wife to accept the situation. Why don’t you just tell them you don’t want to be with me?”
If Tanne d’Arc reacted with utter disdain and refused me, then the candidacy would automatically move to someone else. Even if no one in Alexandricia’s family was eligible, what about that studmuffin Camulla? His lifestyle offered a lot of freedom, and anybody would be lucky to end up with such a drop-dead hunk.
“And you think I can go against my brother’s wishes? Or are you offering to convince him to choose someone else?”
“Oh, no. I heard he’s a professional bullfighter. I don’t think I’d like to make him angry.”
“Well, then what are we supposed to do?! Hrmph.” Glowering, Tanne d’Arc grabbed her wine cup and drained it in one gulp. She let out a delicate sigh followed by a less delicate belch, and quickly covered her mouth with one hand.
Well. That was one way to drink.
“Just so you know,” I said cautiously, “the wine isn’t very strong, but you should go it a little slower. Are you feeling all right?”
“Mind your own business. Are you not going to serve me? I thought you said that you would replace that serving woman, since you’re the best naked slave in your whole wide village. Was that just empty posturing?”
Well, wasn’t she a smart aleck? A very cute smart aleck, admittedly. Which! Relatable. She was still young enough to get away with being sarcastic without driving everybody insane. Isn’t that right, Gintanen?
Tanne d’Arc kept one hand over her mouth and thrust her wine cup toward me with the other, so I poured her another serving.
“To tell you the truth,” I admitted, “I haven’t actually told my wife that the village chief might be giving me a new bride.”
“So what? I’ve heard that it’s completely normal for barbarians to have multiple wives waiting on them hand and foot. Is that not true?”
“Well, as you can see, I’m a slave,” I explained, tugging on my belly-button piercing to show it to her. “We may be barbarians, but I’m in the lowest caste of the village.”
“If you’re their best warrior, how in the world did you wind up becoming a slave?”
“It’s a long, long story.”
“Oh, say no more,” she snapped. “I bet that brutish village chief of yours made you a slave so she could put a leash on you. And she wants children who’ll be strong warriors one day, so she’s making me marry you to bear your children.”
Uhh. I…didn’t know how to respond to that.
Lost in her thoughts, Tanne d’Arc let out a deep sigh—a ridiculously deep sigh that somehow managed to make her boobs bounce. No, I don’t get it either. You get used to these things in a fantasy world. “I had plans, you know. My dream was to choose who I fell in love with and wed a dashing white bull-knight. I’m devastated that my brother would make me marry some buck-naked barbarian warrior like you. A strategic marriage in this day and age? You truly are a lot of savages, aren’t you?”
“Look, quit calling us barbarians and savages and whatever else. You’re being rude.”
She hiccupped. “And what are you going to do about it, you stupid, bare-ass, slave-worm backwater—”
I finally, finally lost my cool and swatted Tanne d’Arc’s horn with my palm.
She was aghast. So was I, honestly. “Um. I…are you okay? Did that hurt?”
“Did you…just…touch…my horns?”
“Uh, I guess I might have.”
“You said marrying me would put you in an awkward position, and then you have the nerve to offer me your hand? You really are a barbarian!”
“Hey…look, I didn’t even hit you that hard. I don’t even think I’ve hit anybody before outside of like, actual combat. And why are you mad if you think I’m just offering you a hand?”
What was I missing here?
For another second Tanne d’Arc stood frozen in alarm, trembling. Then she started screaming for her brother. “Tan-Claude! Tan-Claude!”
And wouldn’t you know it—the representatives of the two groups looked up from whatever extensive diplomatic talks they were conducting and came over to us.